Daddy-Long-Legs

Soon my house is alive with shadows, blackunder the bulb’s glare. These are the terrifying Daddy-Long-Legs of my childhood, an insectstraight out of the mind’s dark spaces,insubstantial bodiescaught in my hair, delirious in flight against the light’s tremor or perched long-legged on a white wall,tiny Buddhas deep in prayer.

I fasten windows, lock all the doors,yet still that pitched flight,vibrato of wings, stays audible until, quite suddenly, October thickensand they disappear.

Jane Holland – Warwick Poet Laureate 2007-2008

Builders

Another one goes higher, climbing up that ladderlike a monkey: screwdriver, hammer, wrenchtucked neatly in his belt. His mates follow,leaving their cloudy fingerprintson plate-glass. This is their world,high above our ant-eye level.We scuttle underneath with cups of tea,leave them steaming on planksor pass them through open windows.

They lean against the scaffoldingat half past ten, unhurried, rolling smokes.Later, the backs of their necks will reddenas they pull the flashing from the roof(the youngest often stripping to the waist).The sun is in my eyes; refracting lightinto a fleet of curving poles,this structure almost seems to bend,a tree-house circumnavigating stone.

I watch them come first thing, unload their vanand swing up into clouds. Each day we hear them through our wallslike mice in the skirting-boardsor scratching at the roof, bird clawshooking onto lead. Their voices rumblein the chimney-breast, hammer usa slant of sky through glassuntil we’re living under occupation.

The wind’s only a thin hissacross darkening fieldsbut my camper rocks gently,ringing its tiny bellslike some displaced troika.Inside, I dream of snowand cannon fire; pour myselfa cup of vodkathat sears even as it blurs.

Outside is like the first dark, familiar as the first hurt.I’m used to its deep velvet lagoons and swim of wet tarmac, its absence of love,my road ahead the white trickof a travelling moon.

Jane Holland – Warwick Poet Laureate 2007-2008

Oneiromancy

To dream of death signifies fear of the unknown. Dandelionsspeak of a lover’sinfidelities. Towers and steeples are signs of ill omen. To avoid nightmare, sleep with a stone under your pillow. The ring-tailed dovemust not be crossed with the crow, or harm approaches. To see rivers in floodmeans death by drowning, and rosesfinancial ruin. Anything blue is an excellent omen for childbirth. Pearls bring sickness. Opals, relief.Falling from a high placeindicates a stranger’s treacheryand carrying milk a long-held dream fulfilled. But milk spiltis to suffer love unrequited.